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Montreal

Montreal

Montreal or Montréal¹ (pronounced Image:ltspkr.png in Canadian English, Image:ltspkr.png in standard French, in Quebec French and in American English) is the second largest city in Canada and the largest city in the province of Quebec. According to the last Canadian census, the city itself – constituting an administrative region in the province – has 1,852,723 inhabitants, while 3,663,000 people live in the Greater Montreal Area (Statistics Canada 2004), making it one of the largest French-speaking cities in the world As in most parts of Quebec, French is the most common spoken language in the city. Nevertheless, Montreal has a substantial anglophone population and many of the residents are bilingual. Montreal is a global city, hosting a multitude of international festivals and events including the XXI Summer Olympiad, Juste pour Rire (Just for Laughs), the Montreal Jazz Festival, the Formula One Canadian Grand Prix, and many others. During the period of prohibition in the United States, Montreal became well-known as one of North America's "Sin Cities" with unparalleled nightlife, a reputation it still holds today. Montreal has the highest concentration of post-secondary students of all major cities in North America. The city is a centre of health and aerospace science. In 2005, it won the distinction of being chosen UNESCO's “World Book Capital City 2005–2006” due to its vibrant literary scene. Montreal is situated in the south western corner of Quebec approximately 270 kilometres (168 miles) southwest of Quebec City, the provincial capital, and 190 kilometres (118 miles) east of Ottawa, the federal capital. The city is located on the Island of Montreal at the confluence of the Saint Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers. The port of Montreal lies at one end of the St. Lawrence Seaway, which is the river gateway that stretches from the Great Lakes up into the Atlantic Ocean.

History

Atlantic Ocean Atlantic Ocean.]] Algonquin, Huron, and Iroquois have inhabited the Montreal area for some eight thousand years. The first European to reach the area was Jacques Cartier, when, on October 2, 1535, he entered the village of Hochelega, on the Island of Montreal. Seventy years later, Samuel de Champlain arrived on the island, but the village of Hochelaga no longer existed. In 1611, he established La Place Royale, a fur trading post on the Island of Montreal, but the local Iroquois successfully defended their land. The first permanent European settlement was created on the Island of Montreal in 1639 by a French tax collector named Jérôme Le Royer. Missionaries Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve, Jeanne Mance and a few French colonists set up a mission named Ville Marie on May 17, 1642. Ville Marie became a centre for the fur trade and the Catholic religion, as well as a base for further exploration into New France. The Iroquois continued their attacks on the settlement until a peace treaty was signed in 1701. The town remained French until 1760, when Pierre de Cavagnal, Marquis de Vaudreuil surrendered it to the British army under Jeffrey Amherst. Fire destroyed one quarter of the town on May 18, 1765. The Treaty of Paris in 1763 ended the Seven Years' War and ceded New France to the Kingdom of Great Britain. American Revolutionists briefly held the city in 1775 but soon left. By this time, the city had gained its present name of Montreal, and it started to grow from British immigration. The golden era of fur trading began in the city with the advent of the locally owned North West Company, the main rival to the primarily British Hudson's Bay Company. Montreal was incorporated as a city in 1832. The city's growth was spurred by the opening of the Lachine Canal, which permitted ships to pass by the unnavigable Lachine Rapids south of the island. Montreal was the capital of the United Province of Canada from 1844 to 1849, bringing more English-speakers to the city, making it roughly bilingual. The now large Anglophone community built one of Canada's first universities, McGill, and the wealthy began building large mansions at the foot of Mont Royal. In 1852, Montreal had 58,000 inhabitants and by 1860, it was the largest city in British North America and the undisputed economic and cultural centre of Canada. The Canadian Pacific Railway made its headquarters there in 1880, and the Canadian National Railway in 1919. Saint Jacques Street in what is now Old Montreal, then better known as Saint James Street, became the centre of the Canadian financial industry in the late 19th century; the name "Saint James Street" was used as a metonym for Canadian high finance much as "Wall Street" is used in the United States, or "Bay Street" is used today. With the annexation of neighbouring towns between 1883 and 1918, Montreal became a mostly Francophone city again. The tradition to alternate between a francophone and an Anglophone mayor thus began and lasted until 1914. After World War I, the Prohibition movement in the United States turned Montreal into a haven for Americans looking for alcohol. Despite the increase in tourism, unemployment remained high in the city, and was exacerbated by the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression. However, Canada began to recover from the Great Depression in the mid-1930s, and skyscrapers, such as the Sun Life Building, began appearing. During World War II, Mayor Camillien Houde protested against conscription and urged Montrealers to ignore the federal government's registry of all men and women. Ottawa was furious over Houde's insubordination and put him in a prison camp until 1944, when the government was forced to institute conscription (see Conscription Crisis of 1944). After Montreal's population surpassed one million in the early 1950s, Mayor Jean Drapeau laid down plans for the future development of the city. These plans included a new metro system and an underground city, the expansion of Montreal's harbour, and the opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway. New buildings were built on top of old ones in this time period, including Montreal's two tallest skyscrapers up to then: the 43-storey Place Ville-Marie and the 47-storey Tour de la Bourse. Two new museums were also built, and finally in 1966, the metro opened, along with several new expressways. The city's international status was cemented by Expo '67 and the Summer Olympics in 1976. A major league baseball team, called the Montreal Expos, was named after the Expo and started playing in Montreal in 1969, but the team moved to Washington, DC in 2005. Montreal celebrated its 350th anniversary in 1992, prompting the construction of two of Montreal's tallest skyscrapers: 1000 de La Gauchetière and 1250 René-Lévesque. Currently, Montreal's favourable economic conditions allow further improvements in infrastructure, with the expansion of the metro system and the development of a ring road around the island. Neighbourhood gentrification is also occurring. Montreal now constitutes its own region of Quebec. In late 2005, Montreal hosted the United Nations Climate Change Conference, the first meeting joint meeting of the parties to the Kyoto Protocol and to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

City government

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change The head of the city government in Montreal is the mayor, who is first among equals in the City Council. The current mayor is Gérald Tremblay, who is a member of the Union des citoyens et des citoyennes de l'Île de Montréal (English: Montreal Island Citizens Union). The city council is a democratically elected institution and is the primary decision-making authority in the city. It currently consists of 73 members from all boroughs of the city. The Council has jurisdiction over many matters, including public security, agreements with other governments, subsidy programs, the environment, urban planning, and a three-year capital expenditure program. The City Council is also required to supervise, standardise or approve certain decisions made by the borough councils. Reporting directly to the City Council, the executive committee exercises the decision-making powers appropriate to it and is responsible for preparing various documents including budgets and by-laws, submitted by the City Council for approval. The decision-making powers of the executive committee cover, in particular, the awarding of contracts or grants, the management of human and financial resources, supplies and buildings. It may also be assigned further powers by the City Council. Standing committees are the council's instruments for public consultations. They are responsible for the public study of pending matters and for making the appropriate recommendations to the council. They also review the annual budget forecasts for departments under their jurisdiction. A public notice of meeting is published in both French and English daily newspapers at least seven days before each meeting. All meetings include a public question period. The current standing committees, of which there are seven, have terms lasting two years. In addition, the City Council may decide to create special committees at any time. Each standing committee is made up of seven to nine members, including a chairman and a vice-chairman. The members are all elected municipal officers, with the exception of a representative of the government of Quebec on the public security committee. The city of Montreal is only one component of the larger Communauté Métropolitaine de Montréal (English: Metropolitan Community of Montreal or CMM), which is in charge of planning, coordinating, and financing economic development, public transportation, garbage collection, etc., across the metropolitan area of Montreal. The president of the CMM is the mayor of Montreal. The CMM covers 3,839 km² (1,482 mi²), with 3,431,551 inhabitants in 2002; it is thus larger in area and population than the city of Toronto, even after its 1998 merger. However, the city of Toronto is larger than the city of Montreal proper, and the Greater Toronto Area (a statistical area, and not an administrative entity like the CMM) is larger than the CMM, with 7,000 km² (2,700mi²); of area and over 5.2 million people. Montreal was merged with the 27 surrounding municipalities on the Island of Montreal on 1 January 2002. The merger created a unified city of Montreal which covered the entire Island of Montreal. This move proved to be unpopular, and several former municipalities totalling 13% of the population of the Island of Montreal voted to leave the newly unified city in separate referendums which took place on 20 June 2004. The demerger will take place on 1 January 2006, after which there will be 16 municipalities on the Island of Montreal, which will be the city of Montreal proper plus 15 much smaller municipalities.

Climate

2006 Montreal lies at the confluence of several climactic regions and thus the climate in Montreal varies greatly, both by season and by day to day, and is considered a part of the culture of the city by Montrealers. Precipitation is abundant with an average snowfall of 2.4 metres (7.9 ft) per year in the winter and regular rainfall throughout the year. Each year the city government spends more than CAN$50 million on snow removal. Frequent thunderstorms make summer the wettest season statistically, but it is also the sunniest. Possibly as a consequence of global warming, the weather patterns have begun to change slightly in the past years. Winters tend to be less cold, with less snow and higher temperatures, while summers are getting hotter and longer, as there was a heatwave throughout most of September 2005. However, it will take more time and data to know for sure whether or not these are statstical anomalies. The coldest month of the year is January, which has a daily average temperature of -10.4°C (13°F). Due to wind chill, the perceived temperature can be much lower than the actual temperature and wind chill factor is often included in Montreal weather forecasts. The warmest month is July which has a daily average temperature of 20.9°C (69.6°F). The lowest temperature ever recorded was -37.8°C (-36.0°F) on 15 January 1957 and the highest temperature ever was 37.6°C (99.7°F) on 1 August 1975.^{[http://www.climate.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/climate_normals/results_e.html?Province=ALL&StationName=montreal&SearchType=BeginsWith&LocateBy=Province&Proximity=25&ProximityFrom=City&StationNumber=&IDType=MSC&CityName=&ParkName=&LatitudeDegrees=&LatitudeMinutes=&LongitudeDegrees=&LongitudeMinutes=&NormalsClass=A&SelNormals=&StnId=5415& ]} Moderate to high humidity is common in the summer. In spring and autumn, rainfall averages between 55 and 94 mm (2.2 and 3.7 in) a month. Some snow in spring and autumn is normal. Similarly, late heat waves as well as "Indian summers" are a regular feature^{[http://www.weather.com/outlook/travel/climatology/monthly/CAXX0301]} of the climate. Despite its widely varying climate, the Montreal region supports a diverse array of plants and wildlife. The maple is one of the most common trees and the sugar maple in particular is an enduring symbol of Montreal and Quebec, thanks to the production of maple syrup.

Demographics

See also: List of famous Montrealers The Communauté Métropolitaine de Montréal has a population of 3,607,000 in 2004 according to Statistics Canada. This total includes the neighbouring cities of Laval and Longueuil, as well as other smaller cities. Montreal proper will have a population of 1,500,000 people after the demerger on 1 January 2006. A resident of Montreal is known as a Montrealer in English and a Montréalais(e) in French. Residents sometimes refer to the city by the shorthand of MTL, or occasionally by the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport designation of YUL. The large population of Montreal justifies it having its own postal district, H span, together with Laval. Most Montrealers speak French[http://www.statcan.ca/english/Pgdb/demo14b.htm] as their first language while a minority speaks English as their first language. About 67.8% of the population of Montreal area is composed of francophones, 18.4% have neither French nor English as their first language and are called allophones, and 13.8% are anglophones. On the island of Montreal itself, these numbers change and francophones constitute only 53% of the population, allophones 29%, and anglophones 18%. However, the majority of residents have at least a working knowledge[http://www.statcan.ca/english/Pgdb/demo18a.htm] of both languages, and a majority of allophones speak either English or French as a second language. This trend has increased after the French language reforms of the 1970s. Italian, Arabic, Greek, Portuguese, Spanish, and Hindi are also very popular languages. The Caucasian population is vastly decended from people of French, Irish, and Italian origin[http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/demo27h.htm]. According to Statistics Canada 2001, the top four ethnic groups in the city are Canadian at 55.7% (1,885,085), French at 26.6% (900,485), Italian at 6.6% (224,460), and Irish at 4.7% (161,235). Statistics Canada concludes that those who identified themselves as Canadian are most likely of British, French, or Irish origin whose families have been in Canada for many generations. Montreal is a multi-ethnic city. Caucasians are the majority in the city but there are substantial groups of minorities.[http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/products/standard/themes/RetrieveProductTable.cfm?Temporal=2001&PID=58628&METH=1&APATH=3&PTYPE=55440&THEME=44&FREE=0&AID=0&FOCUS=0&VID=0&GC=99&GK=NA&SC=1&CPP=99&SR=1&RL=0&RPP=9999&D1=0&D2=0&D3=0&D4=0&D5=0&D6=0&GID=431565]
- White: 2,886,400 or 86.8%
- Blacks: 129,705 or 3.9%
- Arab: 67,830 or 2.0%
- Asian: 56,655 or 1.7%
- Chinese: 50,115 or 1.5%
- mixed race: 46,900 or 1.4%,

Religion

For a major North American city of its size, the Catholic population used to be visibly high as hundreds of churches dot the streets of Montreal. Over 84% of the population identify with the Christian heritage, the vast majority of them being of Roman Catholic heritage mostly due to the heavy numbers of French, Italian, Irish, and Portuguese inhabitants in the city. The Protestant, and Orthodox presence which is much smaller are chiefly those of English, Greek, and Lebanese peoples. However, since Quebec's Quiet Revolution in the 1960s, very few francophone quebekers practice their religion. The proportion of practicing Christians (especially Catholics) in Quebec is now significantly lower than the proportion of practicing Christians in the rest of Canada, or even North America. Non-Christian religions are very large as well. The largest non-Christian group is now Muslim and is mostly composed of fairly recent arrivals. Montreal's Jewish community, while in decline, has had a huge impact on the cultural, artistic, economic and gastronomic life of the city, dating back to the mid-18th century. There are also small Buddhist, Sikh, Baha'i and Hindu communities.

Economy

Once the largest city in Canada, Montreal remains a vibrant major centre of commerce, industry, culture, finance, and world affairs. Montreal is a major port city, being at the start of the Saint Lawrence Seaway, a deep-draft inland waterway which links it to the industrial centres of the Great Lakes. As one of the most important ports in Canada, it is a trans-shipment point for grain, sugar, petroleum products, machinery, and consumer goods. For this reason, it is part of the railway backbone of Canada and has always been an extremely important rail city; it is the eastern terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway and home to the headquarters of the Canadian National Railway. Montreal industries include pharmaceuticals, high technology, textile and clothing manufacturing (the schamata industry), higher education, electronic goods, software engineering (specifically video games), building and city engineering, transportation devices, printed goods, fabric, and tobacco. Montreal is one of the world's top aerospace industry centres. It is often said that Montreal is the only city in the world where an entire airplane can be built, from the start of engine crafting to the last paint drop. The leading wagon of the industry is unquestionably Bombardier, a manufacturer best known for medium-sized aircraft. The headquarters of the Canadian Space Agency are located in Longueuil, southeast of Montreal. Montreal also hosts the headquarters of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO, a United Nations body); the World Anti-Doping Agency (an Olympic body); and the International Air Transport Association (IATA); as well as some 60 other international organizations in various fields.

Places in Montreal

Downtown Montreal

International Air Transport Association International Air Transport Association International Air Transport Association Downtown Montreal lies at the foot of Mount Royal, which is designated as a major urban park. The Downtown area contains dozens of notable skyscrapers—which, by law, cannot be higher than Mount Royal—including the aforementioned 1000 de La Gauchetière and 1250 René-Lévesque, as well as Ieoh Ming Pei's Place Ville-Marie. The Tour de la bourse is also a significant building in Montreal, as it's where all stock and derivative trades take place (Montreal World trade center), and is also home to a successful program to encourage nesting peregrine falcons. This cruciform office tower (Place Ville-Marie), built in 1962, sits atop an underground shopping mall that forms the nexus of Montreal's underground city, one of the world's largest, with indoor access to over 1,600 shops, restaurants, offices, and businesses, as well as metro stations, transportation terminals, and tunnels extending all over downtown. The central axis for downtown is Saint Catherine Street. Other streets like Peel, de la Montagne, de Maisonneuve and Crescent are very popular as well. Downtown Montreal is located between the mountain Mount Royal and the river St Lawrence River. Two man-made islands are located in front of the Montreal Skyline panorama, Île Ste. Hélène, and Ile Notre-Dame. The Notre Dame island hosts the Canadian Grand Prix and Formula One car races, as well as the Champ Car tournament. La Ronde (now owned by American company 6 Flags) is the biggest amusement park in Montreal and is located on Île Ste. Hélène. The International Fireworks Festival is held there every summer. The basic Skyline view may be seen from one of two lookouts on Mount Royal. The lookout at the Belevedere takes in downtown, the river, and the Montérégien Hills, and on clear days the Green Mountains of Vermont are visible. The view of eastern lookout on Remembrance Rd. sweeps out toward the Olympic Stadium, and beyond. Many tourists visit these lookouts. Montreal is known for the contrast between old and new. The Maison des Cooperants (a 146 m [479 ft] tall building) is right in front of an old church. Much of Old Montreal has been kept the way it was back in the day Montreal was first established. Old Montreal was a worldwide port, but shipping has been moved further east to the Port de Montreal site, leaving the Old Port/Vieux-Port as an historical area. The most recent trip to the North Pole departed from that specific port. The Montreal Skyline is ranked 8th in the Emporis in skyline views, a focal point in Montreal's recognition. The reason the Olympic Stadium was built 6 kilometres (3.7 miles) from downtown is that the owners thought that Montreal's downtown would expand to where the Olympic Stadium now stands.

Old Montreal

Southeast of downtown is Old Montreal (Vieux-Montréal), a historic centre with such attractions as the Old Port, Place Jacques-Cartier, City Hall, Place d'Armes, Pointe-à-Callière Museum, and the Notre-Dame de Montréal Basilica. Buildings and roads in Old Montreal have been maintained or restored to keep the look of the city in its earliest days as a settlement. Old Montreal was a worldwide port, but shipping has been moved further east to the Port de Montreal site, leaving the Old Port/Vieux-Port as an historical area. The most recent trip to the North Pole departed from that specific port. Downtown and Old Montreal are connected by the recent Quartier international de Montréal development.

Olympic Village

Quartier international de Montréal Montreal was host to one of the most successful World's Fairs in history, Expo '67. Partially based upon the success of the World's Fair, Montreal was awarded the 1976 Summer Olympics. The Olympic Stadium has the world's tallest inclined tower and, until the end of the 2004 season, was the home of the Montreal Expos baseball team. The Olympic complex also includes the Montreal Biodome, Montreal Insectarium, and the Montreal Botanical Garden, one of the largest botanical gardens in the world, second only to Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in England. Today, the CFL's Montreal Alouettes play their last game of their season and playoff games in the Olympic Stadium. It is nicknamed the "Big O" because of its oval shaped roof. It holds up to 56 040 fans for a football game (45 000 for baseball) and it may hold more in the future when temporary overflow stands are added to the dugout pits and center field for football. It is also sometimes called the "Big Owe" due to the outrageous total cost of the stadium which is still being paid by taxpayers to this day.

Museums and Cultural Centres

Montreal is the centre of Quebec culture and a major centre of Canadian culture in general. It has many specialized museums such as the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA), the Musée d'art contemporain (MAC), the Redpath Museum, the McCord Museum of Canadian History, and the Canadian Centre for Architecture. The Place des Arts cultural complex houses the MAC and several theatres, and is the seat of the Montreal Opera and for the moment the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, which is slated to receive a new concert hall adjacent to Place des Arts.

Religious Sanctuaries

Montreal Symphony Orchestra Nicknamed "the city of saints," or "la ville aux cent clochers" (the city of a hundred belltowers), Montreal is renowned for its churches. As described by Mark Twain, "This is the first time I was ever in a city where you couldn't throw a brick without breaking a church window." The city has four Roman Catholic basilicas: Mary, Queen of the World Cathedral, the aforementioned Notre-Dame Basilica, St. Patrick's Basilica, and Saint Joseph's Oratory. The Oratory is the largest church in Canada, with the largest dome of its kind in the world after that of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. Other well-known churches include the pilgrimage church of Notre-Dame-du-Bon-Secours, which is sometimes called the Sailors' Church, and the Anglican Christ Church Cathedral, which was completely excavated and suspended in mid-air during the construction of part of the Underground City. All of the above are major tourist destinations, particularly Notre-Dame and the Oratory. An impressive number of other churches can be found, as such that a five minute walk is usually enough to find another one. A common expression of Montrealers is that we stumble into them walking.

Chinatown

Christ Church Cathedral Montreal has a small but active Chinatown (Quartier chinois) just south of downtown, featuring many Chinese shops and restaurants, as well as a number of Vietnamese establishments. Several of these restaurants offer dim sum from as early as seven a.m. to three p.m. and can be quite crowded, especially on Sundays. The principal axes of Chinatown are Saint Lawrence Boulevard and La Gauchetière Street.

The Gay Village

Montreal is known as a Queer or Gay-friendly city. Its pride festival, Divers/Cité, is the largest in North America; organizers estimate that it [http://fugues.vortex.qc.ca/main.cfm?p=100&Article_ID=3224 drew 1.4 million people] in 2002. It benefits from financial support from all three levels of government. Montreal is home to one of the largest gay villages in North America, centred around the downtown Beaudry metro station (known in French as le Village gai). Montreal is an epicentre of Queer life and culture in Canada and hosts several circuit parties every year. The 2006 World Outgames are to be held in Montreal.

The Plateau

World Outgames Montreal's trendy and colourful Plateau neighbourhood is located on the twin North-South axes of Saint Laurent Boulevard and Saint Denis Street, and East-West axis of Mount Royal Avenue. The cobbled, pedestrian-only Prince Arthur Street is also located in this neighbourhood. In the summer, night life often seems as active as in the day in this area. It boasts the highest population density of all Montréal and the has the greatest number of creative people in canada, according to Statistics Canada. The same source also states that it is the urban place where the most people travel mainly by foot, bicycle or public transport. Thousands of bicycles occupying the sidewalks and public places can attest of that fact. The Plateau Mont-Royal has been dubbed the "coolest neighbourhood in North America by Wallpaper Magazine.

Mount Royal

Mount Royal is Montreal's outstanding urban park, and was designed by Frederick Olmstead, best known as the designer of New York's Central Park. Mount Royal features include the Chateau overlooking downtown Montreal and Beaver Lake. It is topped by an illuminated cross that has become a Montreal landmark. Observant hikers on its many trails will find an abundance of small wildlife. In the winter, it is home to numerous cross-country ski trails. Every Sunday in the summer, hundreds of people gather at the foot of Mount Royal for several hours of drumming, dancing, and juggling (among many other activities), in an event that has come to be known as the Tam-Tams. It is unclear how this event started; but, as it has no formal organization and has carried on both in a lively and peaceful way since at least the late 1980s, it remains a popular event.

Night Life

Saint Denis Street is also the heart of the Latin Quarter of Montreal (Quartier latin), which is just south of the Plateau and filled with clubs, bars, and street festivals. The principal east-west axes of this district are Saint Catherine Street and Boulevard de Maisonneuve, with the Saint Denis as its north-south axis. The mood is bohemian. Crescent Street is "party central" for Montreal's Anglophone population, lying at the edge of the Concordia Ghetto (around the Concordia University campus where many students live). Throughout the summer, it features street fairs and festivals. The Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix unofficially starts off Montreal's non-stop festival season in the summer. Crescent Street also features many clubs and bars. St Laurent is also filled with bars and clubs, and the best place to find nightlife, along with cozy restaurants which open their terraces in the summer.

Strip Clubs

Montreal is know as the strip(or genltleman's) club capital of Canada. The city has over 30 strip clubs in the downtown area alone. The strip clubs in Montreal are unique in that the majority of them offer full contact lap dances. Full-contact lap dances are legal in the province of Quebec as of 2001. Strip clubs in Montreal are either categorized as full-contact or non-contact. The strip clubs in Montreal operated differently than U.S. strip clubs. In Montreal the exotic dancers are mostly independent workers, not house dancers. Due to this, the exotic dancers are free to work at a variety of strip clubs, and often do. Unlike U.S. exotic dancers, those working in Montreal retain all of the revenues from their performances; gratuity is not expected.

Sports

Canadian Grand Prix Montreal is famous for its hockey-hungry fans. The Montreal Canadiens is one of the oldest teams of the NHL, and a member of the 'Original Six'. Montreal is also the site of two high-profile racing events each year: the aforementioned Canadian Grand Prix, and the Molson Indy Montreal of the Champcars Series. Both races take place at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Ile Notre-Dame. On July 13, 1982, Montreal hosted the first Major League Baseball All-Star Game outside the United States. The most important sporting event in Montreal's history, however, was when Montreal played host to the 1976 Summer Olympics. Once the favored sport mainly of Montreal anglophones, football fever has spread across Quebec, with the pro football Montreal Alouettes of the CFL drawing packed crowds at the small but picturesque Molson Stadium, part of McGill University and nestled against the slopes of Mt-Royal. As noted above, the Alouettes play their last regular season game and post season games at the much-larger and enclosed Olympic Stadium, which has also been home to a number of Grey Cups, the CFL's championship game. Montreal sports fans usualy follow Boston franchises, like the Boston Red Sox, the New England Patriots and the Boston Celtics. Montreal also has an all-sports radio station, CKGM (The Team 990). In July 2005 Montreal hosted the 11th FINA World aquatic sports Championship[http://www.fina.org]. In 2006 Montreal will attract some 16,000 LGBT athletes, who will participate in the first-ever World Outgames. The Outgames are being hailed as the largest international event in the city of Montreal since the 1976 Olympics.

Major Sports Venues

Current Professional Franchises

Notes

In music, a note is either a unit of fixed pitch that has been given a name, or the graphic representation of that pitch in a notation system, and sometimes its duration, or a specific instance of either, so one can speak of "the second note of Happy Birthday" for example. The general and specific meanings are freely mixed by musicians, although they can be initially confusing: "the first two notes of Happy Birthday are the same note", meaning, "the first two sounds of Happy Birthday have the same pitch." A note is a discretization of musical or sound phenomena and thus facilitates musical analysis (Nattiez 1990, p.81n9).

Note name

In English, notes are given 7 letter names: A, B, C, D, E, F, and G (in order of rising pitch). These letter names repeat, so that the note above G is A (an octave higher than the first A) and the sequence continues indefinitely. Notes are used together as a musical scale or tone row. However, because there are actually 12 notes needed by diatonic music, the 7 letter names can also be given a modifier. The two main modifiers are sharps and flats which respectively raise or lower the pitch of a note by a semitone. These are used to create the additional five notes necessary to complete the chromatic scale. The sharp symbol is ♯ (similar to the pound symbol, #), the flat symbol is ♭ (similar to a lower-case italic b). These accidentals are written after the note name; for example F♯ represents the note F sharp, B♭ is B flat. In music notation the symbols are placed before the note symbol or at the beginning of the line as a key signature. The natural symbol (♮), can be inserted before a note to cancel a flat or sharp in the signature. Sharps can also be applied to notes B and E creating notes that are equal to C and F respectively (in modern western musical practice). Similarly flats applied to C and F are other names for B and E. Pushing this further, double-sharps and double-flats are used to indicate raised sharps and lowered flats. For example B♭♭ is another name for A. Numbers can be suffixed to the letter names to distiguish the octaves they fall in. Octaves are counted upward and run starting from C, where A4 is nowadays standardised to 440 Hz, lying in the octave containing notes from C4 to B4. The lowest note on most pianos is A0.

Converting Notes to Frequency (Hertz)

In all technicality, music can be composed of notes at any arbitrary frequency. Since the physical causes of music are vibrations of mechanical systems, they are often measured in Hertz (Hz), with 1 Hz = 1 complete vibration per second. For historical and other reasons especially in Western music, only twelve-notes of fixed frequencies are used. These fixed frequencies are mathematically related to each other, and are defined around the central note, A4 = 440 Hz. The note naming convention specifies a letter, any sharp/flat, and an octave number. Any note is exactly an integer number of half-steps away from central A (A4). Let this distance be denoted n. Then, :

Frequency [Hz]= 440 \times 2^

For example, let's find the frequency of Middle C, C4. There are +3 half-steps between A and C (1) A → A# (2) A# → B (3) B → C :

f = 440 \times 2^ = 523.2511 Hz

(approximately) It is important to keep the sign of n in mind. For example, the F below Middle A is F#3. There are -4 half-steps: (1) A → G# (2) G# → G (3) G → F# (4) F# → F ... each of these is descending the scale. Thus: :

f = 440 \times 2^ = 349.2290 Hz

(approximately) Finally, it can be seen from this formula that octaves automatically yield factors of two times the original frequency (in fact this is the means to derive the formula, combined with the notion of equally-spaced intervals).

Continental note names

Another style of notation, rarely used in English, uses the suffix "is" to indicate a sharp and "es" (only "s" after A and E) for a flat, e.g. Fis for F♯, Bes for B♭, Es for E♭. In parts of Europe, the letter H is sometimes used instead of B, in which case B represents B♭.

Note name example

When notes are written out in a score, each note is assigned a specific vertical position on a staff position (a line or a space) on the staff, as determined by the clef. Each line or space is assigned a note name, these names are memorized by the musician and allows him or her to know at a glance the proper pitch to play on his or her instrument for each note-head marked on the page. musician The staff above shows the notes C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C and then in reverse order, with no key signature or accidentals. The frequency of a note doubles per octave. So the next C has a frequency of 524.

History of note names

Music notation systems have used letters of the alphabet for centuries. The 6th century philosopher Boethius is known to have used the first fifteen letters of the alphabet to signify the notes of the two-octave range that was in use at the time. Though it is not known whether this was his devising or common usage at the time, this is nonetheless called Boethian notation. Following this, the system of repeating letters A-G in each octave was introduced, these being written as minuscules for the second octave and double minuscules for the third. When the compass of used notes was extended down by one note, to a G, it was given the Greek G (Γ), gamma. (It is from this that the French word for scale, gamme is derived, and the English word gamut.) The remaining five notes of the chromatic scale (the black keys on a piano keyboard) were added gradually; the first being B which was flattened in certain modes to avoid the dissonant augmented fourth interval. This change was not always shown in notation, but when written, B♭ (B flat) was written as a Latin, round "b", and B♮ (B natural) a Gothic b. These evolved into the modern flat and natural symbols respectively. The sharp symbol arose from a barred b, called the "cancelled b". In parts of Europe, including Germany, the natural symbol transformed into the letter H: in German music notation, H is B♮ (B natural) and B is B♭ (B flat). In Italian notation the notes of scales are given in terms of Do - Re - Mi - Fa - Sol - La - Si rather than C - D - E - F - G - A - B. These names follow the original names given by Guido d'Arezzo, who had taken them from the first syllabs of the first seven verses of a Gregorian Chant called Ut queant laxis. "Do" replaced the originary "ut".

Note value

A written note can also have a note value, a code which determines the note's relative duration. These note values include quarter notes (crotchets), eighth notes (quavers), and so on.

Source

- Nattiez, Jean-Jacques (1990). Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music (Musicologie générale et sémiologue, 1987). Translated by Carolyn Abbate (1990). ISBN 0691027145.

External links

- [http://tonalsoft.com/enc/ Tonalsoft Encyclopaedia of Tuning] Category:Musical notation Category:Sound ja:音符

International Phonetic Alphabet

: "IPA" redirects here. For other uses, see IPA (disambiguation). The NATO phonetic alphabet has also informally been called the International Phonetic Alphabet. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system of phonetic notation devised by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) used in spoken human language. It is intended as a notational standard for the phonemic and phonetic representation of all spoken languages. For a treatment of the English language using the IPA, see International Phonetic Alphabet for English, for a brief chart, see IPA chart for English.
History

Description
The general principle of the IPA is to provide a separate symbol for each speech segment, avoiding letter combinations (digraphs) such as sh and th in English orthography, and avoiding ambiguity such as that of c in English.
The principle of formation
The IPA is what MacMahon (1996) has termed a "selective" phonetic alphabet. It aims to provide a separate symbol for every contrastive (that is, phonemic) sound occurring in human language. For instance, a flap and a tap are two different articulations, but since no language has (yet) been found to make a phonemic distinction between them, the IPA does not provide them with dedicated symbols. Instead, it provides a single symbol, , that covers both. For non-contrastive (that is, phonetic or subphonemic) details of these sounds, the IPA relies on diacritics, which are optional. Thus there is a certain level of flexibility in representing a language with the IPA.
The principles behind the used symbols
The letters chosen for the IPA are generally drawn from the Latin and Greek alphabets, or are modifications of Latin or Greek letters. There are also a few letters derived from Latin punctuation, such as the glottal stop (originally an apostrophe, but later given the form of a "gelded" question mark to have the visual impact of the other consonants), and one, , although Latin in form, was inspired by Arabic ﻉ. In contrast, the old Latin-derived symbols for the clicks have been abandoned in favor of the iconic Khoisanist symbols, such as . The sound-values of the consonants from the Latin alphabet correspond to usage in French and Italian, which are close to those of most other European languages as well: , , , (hard) , , , , , (unvoiced) , , , . English values are used for , , and , The vowels from the Latin alphabet (, , , , ) correspond to the vowels of Spanish and are similar to Italian. is like the vowel in piece, like rule, etc. The other symbols from the Latin alphabet (, , , , , and ) correspond to sounds these letters represent in other languages. has the Germanic value, English y in yoke. has the Scandinavian and Old English value (Finnish y, German y or ü, French u, Dutch u). Letters that share a particular modification sometimes correspond to a similar type of sound. For example, all the retroflex consonants have the same symbol as the equivalent alveolar consonant, with the addition of a rightward pointing hook at the bottom. Although there is some correspondence between modified letters, generally the IPA does not have a systematic "featural" relationship between graphic shape and articulation. For instance, there is not a consistent relationship between lowercase letters and their small capital counterparts, nor are all labial consonants linked through a common character design. Diacritic marks can be combined with IPA letters to transcribe modified phonetic values or secondary articulations. There are also special symbols for suprasegmental features such as stress and tone.
Types of transcriptions
The International Phonetic Association recommends that a phonetic transcription should be enclosed in square brackets ("[ ]"). A transcription that specifically denotes only phonological contrasts may be enclosed in slashes ("/ /") instead. If one is in doubt, it is best to use brackets, for by setting off a transcription with slashes one makes a theoretical claim that every symbol within is phonemically contrastive for the language being transcribed. Phonetic transcriptions try to objectively capture the actual pronunciation of a word, whereas phonemic transcriptions are model dependent. For example, Noam Chomsky transcribed the English word night phonemically as /nixt/. In his model, the phoneme /x/ is often silent, but shows its presence by “lengthening” the preceding vowel. The preceding vowel in this case is the phoneme /i/, which is pronounced [aj] when long. So phonemic /nixt/ is equivalent to phonetic [najt], but only if you share Chomsky's belief that historical sounds such as the gh in night may remain in a word long after they have ceased to be pronounced. For phonetic transcriptions, there is flexibility in how closely sounds may be transcribed. A transcription that gives only a basic idea of the sounds of a language in the broadest terms is called a "broad transcription"; in some cases this may be equivalent to a phonemic transcription (only without any theoretical claims). A close transcription, indicating precise details of the sounds, is called a "narrow transcription". These are not binary choices, but the ends of a continuum, with many possibilities in between. All are enclosed in brackets. For example, in some dialects the English word pretzel in a narrow transcription would be , which notes several phonetic features that may not be evident even to a native speaker. An example of a broader transcription is , which only indicates some of the easier to hear features. A yet broader transcription would be . Here every symbol represents an unambiguous speech sound, but without making any claims as to their status in the language. There are also several possibilities in how to transcribe this word phonemically, but here the differences are not of precision, but of analysis. For example, pretzel could be or . The special symbol for English r is not used, for it is not meaningful to distinguish it from a rolled r. The differences in the letter e reflect claims as to what the essential difference is between the vowels of pretzel and pray; there are half a dozen ideas in the literature as to what this may be. The second transcription claims that there are two vowels in the word, even if they can't both be heard, while the first claims there is only one. Occasionally a transcription will be enclosed in pipes ("| |"). This goes beyond phonology into morphological analysis. For example, the words pets and beds could be transcribed phonetically as and (in a fairly narrow transcription), and phonemically as and . Because /s/ and /z/ are separate phonemes in English (unlike Spanish, for example), they receive separate symbols in the phonemic analysis. However, you probably recognize that underneath this, they represent the same plural ending. This can be indicated with the pipe notation. If you believe the plural ending is essentially an s, as English spelling would suggest, the words can be transcribed and . If, as most linguists would probably suggest, it is essentially a z, these would be and . To avoid confusion with IPA symbols, it may be desirable to specify when native orthography is being used, so that, for example, the English word jet is not read as "yet". This is done with angle brackets or chevrons: . It is also common to italicize such words, but the chevrons indicate specifically that they are in the original language's orthography, and not in English transliteration.
Consonants (pulmonic)

Single articulation
Closeup of the main pulmonic consonant section of the IPA chart The pulmonic consonant table, which includes most consonants, is arranged in rows that designate manner of articulation and columns that designate place of articulation. The main chart only includes consonants with a single place of articulation. Notes:
- Asterisks (
- ) mark reported sounds that do not (yet) have official IPA symbols. See the articles for ad hoc symbols found in the literature.
- Daggers (†) mark IPA symbols that do not yet have official Unicode support. Since May 2005, this is the case of the labiodental flap, symbolized by a right-hook v: labiodental flap ([http://std.dkuug.dk/jtc1/sc2/wg2/docs/N2945.pdf Proposal to add this symbol to Unicode])
- In rows where some symbols appear in pairs (the obstruents), the symbol to the right represents a voiced consonant (except for breathy-voiced ). However, cannot be voiced. In the other rows (the sonorants), the single symbol represents a voiced consonant.
- Although there is a single symbol for the coronal places of articulation for all consonants but fricatives, when dealing with a particular language, the symbols are treated as specifically alveolar, post-alveolar, etc., as appropriate for that language.
- Shaded areas indicate articulations judged to be impossible.
- The symbols represent either voiced fricatives or approximants.
- It is primarily the shape of the tongue rather than its position that distinguishes the fricatives , , and .
- The labiodental nasal is not known to exist as a phoneme in any language.
Coarticulation
Closeup of the co-articulated consonant section of the IPA chart
Notes:
- is described as a "simultaneous and ". However, this analysis is disputed. See the article for discussion.
- To be complete, this chart should also include the semi-palatalized postalveolar (palato-alveolar) fricatives and .
- The miscellaneous portion of the chart, as published by the IPA, includes additional symbols that would have been included in the main consonant chart were it not for difficulties in typesetting on a printed page. In this article, which does not suffer from such problems, they have been included in the main chart above.
Consonants (non-pulmonic)
Closeup of the non-pulmonic consonant section of the IPA chart Notes:
- All clicks are doubly articulated and require two symbols: a velar or uvular stop, plus a symbol for the release: , etc. When the dorsal articulation is omitted, a may usually be assumed.
- Symbols for the voiceless implosives are no longer supported by the IPA. Instead, the voiced equivalent is used with a voiceless diacritic: , etc.
- Although not confirmed from any language, and therefore not "explicitly recognized" by the IPA, a retroflex implosive, , is supported in the Unicode Phonetic Extensions Supplement, added in version 4.1 of the Unicode Standard, or can be created as a composite .
- The ejective symbol is often seen for glottalized but pulmonic sonorants, such as , but these are more properly transcribed as creaky ().
Vowels
Closeup of the vowel chart of the IPA Notes:
- Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel, as does (at least prototypically). All others are unrounded.
- is not confirmed as a distinct phoneme in any language.
- is officially a front vowel, but there is little distinction between front and central open vowels, and is frequently used for an open central vowel.
Affricates and double articulation
Affricates and doubly articulated stops are represented by two symbols joined by a tie bar, either above or below the symbols. The six commonest affricates are optionally represented by ligatures, though this is no longer official IPA usage, due to the great number of ligatures that would be required to represent all affricates this way. A third affricate transcription sometimes seen uses the superscript notation for a consonant release, for example for , paralleling ~ . The symbols for the palatal plosives, are often used as a convenience for or similar affricates, even in official IPA publications, so they must be interpreted with care. Image of the six common affricate ligatures and their official IPA equivalents Note:
- If your browser uses Arial Unicode MS to display IPA characters, the following incorrectly formed sequences may look better due to a bug in that font: .
Extended IPA
The Extended IPA was designed for disordered speech. However, some of the symbols (especially diacritics, below) are occasionally used for transcribing normal speech as well. View a pdf file [http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/ExtIPAChart97.pdf here]. The last symbol may be used with the alveolar click for , a combined alveolar and sublaminal click or "cluck-click".
Suprasegmentals
Closeup of the suprasegmental section of the IPA chart
Intonation

Tone
IPA allows for the use of either tone diacritics or tone letters to indicate tones. Note:
- With regard to tone diacritics, Unicode encodes marks for some contour tones, but not all. In Unicode version 4.1, only hacek (rising) and circumflex (falling) diacritics were encoded. Subsequent versions may also include six additional diacritics for contour tones, such as the macron-acute and the grave-acute-grave ligatures. (See an image here.) Note that contour tone diacritics are not encoded as sequences of level tone diacritics in Unicode.
- With regard to tone letters, Unicode does not have separate encodings for contour tones. Instead, sequences of level tone letters are used, with proper display dependent on the font, usually by means of OpenType font rendition: or . (These are probably not displaying correctly in your browser. See the image for a sample of how they should appear.) Since few fonts support combination tone letters (see the external links for one that is free), a common solution is to use the old system of superscript numerals from '1' to '5', for example [e⁵³, e³¹²]. However, this depends on local linguistic tradition, with '5' generally being high and '1' being low for Asian languages, but '1' being high and '5' low for African languages. An old IPA convention sometimes still seen is to use sub-diacritics for low contour tones: for low-falling and low-rising.
- The upstep and downstep modifiers are superscript arrows. Unicode version 4.1 does not encode these, though subsequent versions will. The arrows for upstep and downstep should not be confused with the full-height arrows, which are used to indicate airflow direction.
Diacritics
Closeup of the diacritic section of the IPA chart
Sub-diacritics may be placed above a symbol with a descender, i.e. . The dotless i, <ı>, is used when the dot would interfere with the diacritic. Other IPA symbols may appear as diacritics to represent phonetic detail: (fricative release), (breathy voice), (glottal onset), (epenthetic schwa), o (diphthongization). Notes: #Some linguists restrict this breathy-voice diacritic to sonorants, and transcribe obstruents as . #With aspirated voiced consonants, the aspiration is also voiced. Many linguists prefer one of the diacritics dedicated to breathy voice. The state of the glottis can be finely transcribed with diacritics. A series of alveolar plosives ranging from an open to a closed glottis phonation are:
Extended IPA diacritics
The letters and diacritics of the ExtIPA The ExtIPA has widened the use of some of the regular IPA diacritics, such as for pre-aspiration, or for a linguolabial sibilant, as well as adding some new ones. Some of the ExtIPA diacritics can be used for non-disordered speech as well, for example for the unusual airstream mechanisms of Damin. One modification is the use of subscript parentheses around the phonation diacritics to indicate partial phonation; a single parenthesis at the left or right of the voicing indicates that it is partially phonated at the beginning or end of the segment. For example, is a partially voiced [s], shows partial initial voicing, and partial final voicing; also is a partially devoiced [z], shows partial initial devoicing, and partial final devoicing. These conventions may be convenient for representing various voice onset times. Phonation diacritics may also be prefixed or suffixed rather than placed directly under the segment to represent relative timing. For instance, is a pre-voiced [z], a post-voiced [z], and is an [a] with a creaky offglide. Other ExtIPA diacritics are, In addition to these symbols, a subscript < or > indicates that an articulation is laterally offset to the left or right, and a double exclamation mark indicates 'ventricular' phonation, though it is not clear how this differs from 'harsh' phonation.
Prosodic notation
The ExtIPA also makes use of musical notation for the tempo and dynamics of connected speech. These are subscripted on the insides of a notation that indicates that they are comments on the prosody. Pauses are indicated with periods or numbers inside parentheses.
Obsolete and nonstandard symbols

How to transcribe sounds that don't have symbols in the IPA charts
The remaining blank cells on the IPA chart can be filled without too much difficulty if the need arises. Some ad hoc symbols have appeared in the literature, for example for the lateral flaps and voiceless lateral fricatives, the epiglottal trill, and the labiodental plosives. Diacritics can supply much of the remainder, which would indeed be appropriate if the sounds were allophones. For example, the Spanish bilabial approximant is commonly written as a lowered fricative, . Similarly, voiced lateral fricatives would be written as raised lateral approximants, . A few languages such as Banda have a bilabial flap as the preferred allophone of what is elsewhere a labiodental flap. It has been suggested that this be written with the labiodental flap symbol and the advanced diacritic, . Similarly, a labiodental trill would be written (bilabial trill and the dental sign). Palatal and uvular taps, if they exist, and the epiglottal tap could be written as extra-short plosives, . A retroflex trill can be written as a retracted , just as retroflex fricatives sometimes are. The remaining consonants, the uvular laterals and the palatal trill, while not strictly impossible, are very difficult to pronounce and are unlikely to occur even as allophones in the world's languages. The vowels are similary manageable by using diacritics for raising, lowering, fronting, backing, centering, and mid-centering. For example, the unrounded equivalent of can be transcribed as mid-centered , and the rounded equivalent of [æ] as raised . True mid vowels are lowered , while centered are near-close and open central vowels, respectively. The vowels that aren't representable in this scheme are the compressed vowels, which would require a dedicated diacritic.
Names of the symbols
It is often desirable to distinguish an IPA symbol from the sound it is intended to represent, since there is not a one-to-one correspondance between symbol and sound in broad transcription. The symbol's names and phonetic descriptions are described in the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association. The symbols also have nonce names in the Unicode standard. In some cases, the Unicode names and the IPA names do not agree. For example, IPA calls "epsilon", but Unicode calls it "small letter open E".
The letters
The traditional names of the Latin and Greek letters are used for unmodified symbols. In Unicode, some of the symbols of Greek origin have Latin forms for use in IPA; the others use the symbols from the Greek section. Examples: Note #The Latin "upsilon" is frequently called "horseshoe u" in order to distinguish it from the Greek upsilon. Historically, it derives from a Latin small capital U. The IPA standard includes some small capital letters, such as , although it is common to refer to these symbols as simply "capital" or "cap" letters, because the IPA standard does not include any full-size capital letters. A few letters have the forms of cursive or script letters. Examples: Note #The "looptail G" 10 px is not strictly an IPA character, but is an acceptable alternative. #In form and origin, but not in name, this is the Greek upsilon. Ligatures are called precisely that, although some have alternate names. Examples: Many letters are turned, or rotated 180 degrees. Examples: The symbol can be described as a turned cee, but it is almost always referred to as open o, which described both its articulation and its shape. The symbol is often also called "caret" or "wedge" for it similarity to that diacritic. A few letters are reversed (flipped on a vertical axis): reversed E, reversed epsilon, reversed glottal stop [often called by its Arabic name, ayin]. One letter is inverted (flipped on a horizontal axis): inverted R. ( could also be called an inverted double-u, but turned double-u is more common.) When a horizontal stroke is added, it is called a bar: barred H, barred o, reversed barred glottal stop or barred ayin, barred dotless J or barred gelded J [apparently never 'turned F'], double-barred pipe, etc. One letter instead has a slash through it: slashed O. The implosives have hook tops: hook-top B, as does hook-top H. Such an extension at the bottom of a letter is called a tail. It may be specified as left or right depending on which direction it turns: right-tail N, right-tail turned R, left-tail N [note that has its own traditional name, engma], left-tail em, tail Z [or just retroflex Z], etc. When the tail loops over itself, it's called curly: curly-tail jay, curly-tail C. There are also a few unique modifications: belted L, closed reversed epsilon [there was once also a closed omega], right-leg turned M, turned long-leg R [there was once also a long-leg R], double pipe, and the obsolete stretched C. Several non-English letters have traditional names: C cedilla, eth (also spelled edh), engma, schwa, exclamation mark, pipe. Other symbols are unique to the IPA, and have developed their own quirky names: fish-hook R, ram's horns, bull's eye, esh [apparently never 'stretched ess'], ezh [sometimes also yogh], hook-top heng. The is usually called by the sound it represents, glottal stop. This is not normally a problem, because this symbol is seldom used to represent anything else. However, to specify the symbol itself, it is sometimes called a gelded question mark.
The diacritic marks
Diacritics with traditional names: : acute, macron, grave, circumflex, caron, wedge, or háček, diaeresis or umlaut, breve, (superscript) tilde, plus variants such as subscript tilde, superimposed tilde, etc. Non-traditional diacritics: : seagull, hook, over-cross, corner, bridge, inverted bridge, square, under-ring, over-ring, left half-ring, right half-ring, plus, under-bar, arch, subscript wedge, up tack, down tack, left tack, right tack, tie bar, under-dot, under-stroke. Diacritics are alternately named after their function: The bridge is also called the dental sign, the under-stroke the syllabicity sign, etc.
Comparison to other phonetic notation
The IPA is not the only phonetic transcription system in use. The other common Latin-based system is the Americanist phonetic notation, devised for representing American languages, but used by some US linguists as an alternate to the IPA. There are also sets of symbols specific to Slavic, Indic, Finno-Ugric, and Caucasian linguistics, as well as other regional specialies. The differences between these alphabets and IPA are relatively small, although often the special characters of the IPA are abandoned in favour of diacritics or digraphs. Other alphabets, such as Hangul, may have their own phonetic extensions. There also exist featural phonetic transcription systems, such as Alexander Bell's Visible Speech and its derivatives. There is an extended version of the IPA for disordered speech (extIPA), which has been included in this article, and another set of symbols used for voice quality (VoQS). There are also many personal or idiosyncratic extensions, such as Luciano Canepari's ^canIPA. Since the IPA uses symbols that are outside the ASCII character set, several systems have been developed that map the IPA symbols to ASCII characters. Two notable systems are Kirshenbaum and SAMPA (or X-SAMPA). These systems are often used in electronic media, although their usage has been declining with the development of computer technology, specifically because of spreading support for Unicode. See also: Unicode and HTML
See also

- International Phonetic Alphabet for English explains those IPA symbols used to represent the phonemes of English.
- IPA chart for English: simplifed version.
- TIPA provides IPA support for LaTeX.
- SAMPA, X-SAMPA and Kirshenbaum are other methods of mapping IPA designations into ASCII.
- List of phonetics topics
- Uralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA)
External links

- [http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/ipa.html Official home page of the IPA]
Free IPA font downloads

- [http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=DoulosSILfont Doulos SIL], a Times IPA font that supports tone letters, the new labiodental flap, and many non-standard phonetic symbols, but only in roman typeface.
- [http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=Gentium Gentium], a highly legible international (Latin, Greek, Cyrillic) font in roman and italic typefaces that includes the IPA, but not yet tone letters or the new labiodental flap.
- [http://www.travelphrases.info/gallery/Test_IPA.html Test page] for installed fonts. Includes alternate variants and tone letters.
Keyboards

- [http://www.linguiste.org/phonetics/ipa/chart/keyboard/ Online keyboard]
- [http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=ipa-sil_keyboard IPA-SIL keyboard layout for Mac OS X] for Unicode IPA input
- [http://wikisophia.org/wiki/Wikitex#Tipa WikiTeX] supports editing IPA sequences directly in Wiki articles.
Sound files

- [http://hctv.humnet.ucla.edu/departments/linguistics/VowelsandConsonants/index.html Peter Ladefoged's Course in Phonetics (with sound files)]
- [http://hctv.humnet.ucla.edu/departments/linguistics/VowelsandConsonants/course/chapter1/chapter1.html Pronounceable IPA chart]
- [http://hctv.humnet.ucla.edu/departments/linguistics/VowelsandConsonants/vowels/contents.html An introduction to the sounds of languages]
- [http://web.uvic.ca/ling/resources/ipa/ipa-lab.htm IPA Lab] Chart with sound files at University of Victoria. (Works with QuickTime.)
- [http://www.paulmeier.com/ipa/charts.html Flash version of IPA charts, with sound samples]
- [http://www.ling.hf.ntnu.no/ipa/full/ Another set of IPA sound samples]
Charts

- [http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/fullchart.html IPA chart source]
- [http://www.linguiste.org/phonetics/ipa/chart/ IPA Chart] in Unicode and XHTML/CSS ----
- [http://web.uvic.ca/ling/resources/ipa/charts/IPANumberChart96.pdf IPA number chart], at University of Victoria.
Unicode
Official Unicode PDF files:
- [http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0250.pdf Unicode chart for main IPA letters]
- [http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U02B0.pdf Unicode chart for IPA modifier letters]
- [http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0300.pdf Unicode chart including IPA diacritics] ----
- [http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/ipa-unicode.htm International Phonetic Alphabet in Unicode]
- [http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/bylanguage/ipachart.html Unicode-HTML codes for IPA symbols:] Tables of symbol names and HTML codes at PennState.
Personal extensions of the IPA

- [http://venus.unive.it/canipa/ ^canIPA] : Luciano Canepari's system (500 base symbols)
References

- Albright, Robert W. (1958). The International Phonetic Alphabet: Its background and development. International journal of American linguistics (Vol. 24, No. 1, Part 3); Indiana University research center in anthropology, folklore, and linguistics, publ. 7. Baltimore. (Doctoral dissertation, Standford University, 1953).
- Ball, Martin J.; Esling, John H.; & Dickson, B. Craig. (1995). The VoQS system for the transcription of voice quality. Journal of the International Phonetic Alphabet, 25 (2), 71-80.
- Canepari, Luciano. (2005a). "A Handbook of Phonetics: ‹Natural› Phonetics." München: Lincom Europa, pp. 518. [https://ssl.kundenserver.de/s83009615.einsundeinsshop.de/sess/utn1541a7584d7471b/shopdata/0002_New+titles/product_details.shopscript ISBN 3-8958-480-3] (hb).
- Canepari, Luciano. (2005b) "A Handbook of Pronunciation: English, Italian, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, Hindi, Chinese, Japanese, Esperanto." München: Lincom Europa, pp. 436. [https://ssl.kundenserver.de/s83009615.einsundeinsshop.de/sess/utn1541a7584d7471b/shopdata/0002_New+titles/product_details.shopscript ISBN 3-89586-481-1] (hb).
- Duckworth, M.; Allen, G.; Hardca

Canadian English

Canadian English is the form of English language used in Canada, spoken as a first or second language by over 25 million – or 85 percent of – Canadians ([http://www.statcan.ca/english/Pgdb/demo15a.htm 2001 census]). Canadian English spelling is a mixture of American, British, and unique Canadianisms. Canadian vocabulary is similar to American English, but with key differences and local variations. Pronunciation of English in Canada is overall very similar to American pronunciation, which is especially true for Central and Western Canadians. The island of Newfoundland has its own distinctive dialect of English known as Newfoundland English while the maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island speak Canadian English with an accent sounding more similar to Scottish and, in some places, Irish pronunciation than American. There is also some French influence in pronunciation for some English-speaking Canadians who live near, and especially work with, French-Canadians.

Spelling

Canadian spelling of the English language combines British and American rules. Most notably, French-derived words that in American English end with -or and -er, such as color or center, retain a spelling closer to their original in Canadian and British writing ("colour" and "centre"). In other cases, Canadians and Americans stand at odds with British spelling, such as in the case of words like tire and draft, which in British English are spelled tyre and draught. Interestingly, where American English has moved almost entirely to "ize" endings, and British English to "ise" endings, Canadian English retains the Greek etymology in that it only uses "ise" where a sigma existed in an original Greek root, and uses "ize" for everything else. A business-history explanation for some Canadian spelling rules is possible. For instance, the British spelling of the word cheque probably relates to Canada's once-important ties to British financial institutions. Canada's car industry, on the other hand, has been dominated by American firms from its inception, explaining why Canadians use the American spelling of tire and American terminology for the parts of a car. In fact, a major Canadian retail hardware and home goods chain is known as Canadian Tire. Many of the Commonwealth spellings are kept in order to form constructions such as CITY CENTRE-VILLE in which the former two words can be interpreted as English, and the latter two as French. This makes use of the relative position of adjectives to the noun in both languages. British spellings which include digraphs (or their two-letter equivalents) are beginning to disappear from Canadian spellings. Words such as encyclopædia, dæmon, fœtus, and pædiatrician are spelled encyclopedia, demon, fetus, and pediatrician, although many Canadian dictionaries offer both spellings as an option and medical journals still include ligatures. Manoeuvre (instead of the U.S. maneuver) is still the more common spelling in Canada, though. A plausible contemporary reference for formal Canadian spelling is the spelling used for Hansard transcripts of the Parliament of Canada. Many Canadian editors, though, use the [http://www.fedpubs.com/subject/refer/oxfdic.htm Canadian Oxford Dictionary,] 2nd ed. (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2004), often along with the chapter on spelling in Editing Canadian English and, where necessary (depending on context) one or more other references (see the section "Further reading").

Pronunciation

The primary aspect of the Canadian English accent is a feature called "Canadian raising", where diphthongs are raised before voiceless consonants. For example, about will be raised from , as it is in the American Atlantic dialect, to , a higher vowel, or nearly even in some dialects. The stereotypical aboat pronunciation, lampooned in the American television series South Park is unusual; the stereotype may derive from an interpretation of the aboot pronunciation as heard by someone who is used to the much lower abawt pronunciation, or from a misinterpretation of the spelling of the "word" aboot. Ironically, a monophthongized pronunciation of aboat is quite common in parts of the U.S. Upper Midwest, such as Minnesota. Anecdotally, the abuhwt vowels are heard in Ontario and further west, and the aboot vowels are heard in the Eastern provinces. Diphthong raising is shared with many American dialects in the words writer and rider, pronounced (approximately) as and (in IPA transcription). Note that Canadian English shares with American English the phenomenon where and become after a vowel and before an unstressed vowel. Canadian raising preserves the voicelessness of and the voicedness of where it is etymologically appropriate, even where the contrast is lost in the consonant itself. Also heard is the variation in the pronunciation of the word can't, in Ontario, it is said almost as canned, whereas in the west, it becomes more like kahnt. The Northern cities vowel shift that is happening in Michigan also is heard to an extent in Southwestern Ontario, for example, Andy is pronounced or . A recently identified feature (1995) found among many Canadians is a chain shift known as the Canadian Shift. This is not found in the Atlantic Provinces, east of Quebec; it is only found in Ontario and further west. For people with this shift, cot and caught merge in rounded position. The of bat then moves down to , while the of bet becomes , which is short-a in other accents. This shift is still a relatively new phenomenon, so not all Canadians have it. Of the ones that do, not all have the last stage. Canadians without the Shift typically pronounce cot and caught as an un-rounded , as in the western United States. There is a tendency to monophthongize the long a and o sounds, resulting in for bait and for boat (though this occurs usually in rapid speech). Finally, the broad of foreign loan words in words like drama or Iraq are usually pronounced like the short a of bat: . Like American English, Canadian English is largely rhotic. This means it maintains the pronunciation of r before consonants. Rhoticity has been largely influenced by Hiberno-English, Scottish English, and West Country English. Americans sometimes claim to be able to recognize some Canadians instantly by their use of the word eh. However, only a certain usage of eh (detailed in the article) is peculiar to Canada. It is common in southern Ontario, the Maritimes and the Prairie provinces. In some parts of the United States, American English exhibits features of Canadian English, including Canadian Raising and the use of eh. Canadian accents are sometimes detected among Michiganders, Minnesotans, Western New Yorkers and their northern fellows.

Other variations

Canada shares similarities with English English in pronouncing words like fragile, fertile, and mobile. While American English pronounce them as , , and , Canadians pronounce them as the British do, sounding like , An exception is missile, where the American and British versions are almost equal; the American pronunciation of fertile is also becoming very popular in Canada, even though the British pronunciation remains dominant. In American English, words like semi, anti, and multi are often pronounced as , , and , whereas the British pronounce them like , , and so on. Canadians tend to prefer the British pronunciation of these words, though American pronunciation has made headway.

Vocabulary

Where Canadian English shares vocabulary with other English dialects, it tends to share most with American English. For instance, automotive terminology in Canada is entirely American. Canadians may prefer the British term railway to the American railroad, but most railway terminology in Canada follows American usage (eg., ties, as well as cars rather than sleepers and waggons), although railway employees themselves say sleeper. Spoken Canadian English and American English are mutually intelligible with each other and much more readily understood and less fraught with differences than British English is to either of them. However, some terms in standard Canadian English are shared with Commonwealth English, but not with American English. These include:

Britishisms

- Tory for a supporter of the federal Conservative Party of Canada, the historic Progressive Conservative Party of Canada or a provincial Progressive Conservative party; the use of Tory to mean the Loyalists in the time of the American Revolution is unknown in Canada, where they are called United Empire Loyalists.
- solicitor and barrister for lawyers (although in Canada, a lawyer is usually referred to as a barrister or a solicitor only in formal and professional usage; lawyer, or counsel predominates in everyday contexts, and sometimes the American usage attorney is encountered. In the British system, the solicitor and barrister are two different people; in Canada, the same lawyer occupies both roles but will often use terms like Barrister and Solicitor, or QC [Queen's Counsel, an honour given in some provinces for a certain level of experience] as formal or official titles.)
- Back bacon: called in the US Canadian bacon
- bum for the American butt (the two words coexist in Canadian English, and bum is most commonly used as a polite or childish euphemism)
- tin (as in tin of tuna) rather than can.
- arse is commonly used in Atlantic Canada. West of the Ottawa river, ass is more idiomatic.
- serviette: a table napkin Several lexical items come from British English, such as lieutenant () and light standard (an obsolete British word for lamp-post). Several political terms are uniquely Canadian, including riding (a parliamentary constituency or electoral district).

French Loanwords

Like other dialects of English that exist in proximity to francophones, French loanwords have entered Canadian English, such as:
- alcool: grain alcohol; everclear (pronounced as if English, al-cool)
- CÉGEP (Collège d'enseignement général et professionnel): a two- or three-year pre-university or professional college (Quebec only)
- dépanneur: a corner store (convenience store), shortened to dep (Québec only)
- poutine: a dish where french fries (or chips) are topped with cheese curds and covered with hot gravy (Quebec) or a dumpling filled with ground meat (Maritimes).
- Society of Alcohols: the Société des alcools du Québec, a liquor store. Often called the SAQ (Pronounced sack or S-A-Q) by anglophones. (Québec only)
- tuque: a close-fitting woolen winter hat (the spelling toque is assimilated from a different kind of hat.) American English would use the terms stocking-cap or watch cap.
- historical and political terms such as voyageur, Automatiste, Quiet Revolution, péquiste, bloquiste Often native French Canadian speakers will use calques of French idioms, so in Quebec it is relatively common of for both Anglophones and Francophones to "close the light" or to "open the light", meaning to turn on or off the light in a room. This was especially common in the Gaspé, where until recently Anglophones and Francophones lived in mixed communities for generations. Similar calques from other languages are found in English throughout Canada, particularly in BC and the Prairies where translated usages from European languages are common, whether inherited from parents or spoken by new immigrants.

Uniquely Canadian English words

Canadian English also has its own words not found in other variants of English. In 1998, Oxford University Press produced a Canadian English dictionary, after five years of lexicographical research, called The Canadian Oxford Dictionary; a second edition was published in 2004. It listed uniquely Canadian words, words borrowed from other languages and surveyed spellings, such as whether colour or color was the most popular choice in common use. In Canada, the word premier, as meant to be the leader of a provincial or territorial government, is pronounced prem-yare, preem-year, or preem-yehr in most places, as opposed to the United States, where it is pronounced prem-ear. Premiere, meaning the first showing of a movie, is pronounced the same in Canada as the rest of the world.
- Allophone: a resident of Quebec who speaks a first language other than English or French.
- Biffy: outdoor toilet usually located over pit or a septic tank
- Big Smoke: lately co-opted by Toronto but originally and for a long time in BC and Alberta used only in reference to Vancouver, either with or without a definite article. The origin of the term is not mill-smoke, as might be guessed at first, but from the use of "smoke" in the Chinook Jargon to mean rain and/or fog (of which Vancouver has plenty)
- Blochead: (derogatory term) a member of the Bloc Québécois
- Butter tart: a single serving, sweet pie, often with raisins; very like pecan pie, minus the pecans
- Chesterfield (also Northern Californian English and British English): a sofa, couch, or loveseat[http://www.bartleby.com/61/94/C0279400.html]
- Dayliner: a Budd Rail Diesel Car, a self-propelled diesel passenger railcar
- Double-double: a cup of coffee with two creams and two sugars (especially, but not exclusively, from Tim Hortons)
- Dipper (or 'kneedipper'): a member or supporter of the New Democratic Party
- Eavestroughs: grooves or channels that attach to the underside of the roof of a house to collect rainwater. Known to Americans as a gutter.
- Family Compact: a group of influential families who exercised substantial political control of Ontario during part of the 1800s. The Quebec equivalent was the Chateau Clique
- Felts: set of colouring pens (short for "felt-tipped markers") (in BC)
- Garburator: a garbage disposal unit located beneath the drain of a kitchen sink
- Gettone (in Toronto and environs): foosball; pronounced roughly as in Italian
- Grit: a member or supporter of one of the federal or provincial Liberal parties (but not the Parti libéral du Québec or the BC Liberals)
- Homo milk: whole (homogenized) milk
- Joe job: a lower-class, low-paying job. Not to be confused with the American term joe job.
- Keener: an enthusiastic student, not necessarily a positive term
- Kraft Dinner: often shortened to KD, known elsewhere as Kraft Macaroni and Cheese
- Loonie and toonie: Canadian one- and two-dollar coins
- Loser cruiser: public transit, i.e. the bus. Usually only used by owners of vehicles when speaking disparagingly of transit riders.
- Nanaimo bar: a confection named for the town of Nanaimo, British Columbia and made of egg custard with a graham-based bottom and a thin layer of chocoloate on top; this word is now common in the United States and elsewhere thanks to the efforts of Starbucks in popularizing them.
- Parkade: parking garage
- Quiggly hole and Quiggly town: remains of First Nations underground houses in the Interior of British Columbia
- Robertson: a Canadian square-headed screw or screwdriver. While this is used outside of the country for that screw head type, the screws are much less common.
- Runners: running shoes; sneakers (in BC)
- Shit disturber: a person who tends to create controversy or chaos
- Sugar pie: A pie made with maple-sugar filling, reminiscent of a butter tart and a staple in quebecois home cooking.
- Ski-Doo: a brand name now used generically to refer to any snowmobile. Can also be used as a verb.
- Snowbird: a Canadian who spends the winter in the States (often Florida). Often retired. Also the name of the Canadian Forces aerobatics team.
- Timbits: a brand name of doughnut holes made by Tim Hortons that has become a generic term
- Trousseau tea: a reception held by the mother of a bride, for neighbours not invited to the wedding
- Toque: a knit winter hat that covers the head and ears (called a "ski hat", "watch cap", or "stocking cap" in American English)
- Washroom: a bathroom or a public lavatory.
- Whitener: powdered non-dairy additive for coffee or tea The Bob & Doug McKenzie "Take off to the Great White North" comedy routines, popular in both countries in the early 1980s, drew heavily on linguistic differences such as pronunciation (such as Trawna for Toronto or brudle for brutal) as well as once-obscure historical terms such as hoser or hosehead (originally used to refer to gas siphoning on the prairies in the depression era).

Variations between Canadian and American lexicons

There are a few meaning di